On This Day (3/17/1911): In 1911 a historic report
submitted by Irish investigator Roger Casement found that over 30,000 Amazon
indigenous people were enslaved,...
Thousands of Amazon
Indians were enslaved and killed during the rubber boom
© W Hardenburg
In just 12 years,
Casement estimated that 30,000 indigenous people had been
enslaved, tortured, and murderedto provide for Europe and the United
States’ growing demand for rubber.
‘We are sent far, far
into the forest to get rubber, and if we do not get it, or if we do not get it
quickly enough, we are shot,’ Omarino told the Daily News.
Many of today’s uncontacted Indians are descended
from the survivors of the rubber boom atrocities, who fled into remote
headwaters to escape the killings, torture and epidemics that decimated the
indigenous population.
After receiving the
photographs of her ancestors, Fany told Survival, ‘Every nation did its bit to
exterminate indigenous people: Colombia neglected them; Peru was mastermind and
accomplice to the holocaust; England financed it, and Brazil uprooted Indians
to work on the rubber plantations.’
It is not known what
became of the two slaves, whose parting words to the Daily News were, ‘London
is very wonderful, but the great river and the forest, where the birds fly, is
more beautiful. One day we shall go back.’ It is not known whether either
returned home.
Survival International
Director Stephen Corry said today, ‘The rubber boom may seem like remote
history, but its effect is still with us. When the West began its marriage to
the motor car, its love letters were written in Indian blood. It provoked a
gross crime against humanity which was perpetrated by a British company in the
Witoto area. The parallel should not be exaggerated, but today there are still
British companies, such as Vedanta
Resources, planning the theft of tribal land, this time in India.
It’s time to put a stop to these crimes and start treating tribal people like
human beings.’
Photos Available for
Download here:
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Omarino and Ricudo,
two Witoto slaves brought to the UK in 1911
Download hi-res image Credit: © Cambridge University MAA |
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Thousands of Amazon
Indians were enslaved and killed during the rubber boom
Download hi-res image Credit: © W Hardenburg |
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Witoto slaves in the
Putumayo, Colombia
Download hi-res image Credit: © Anon |
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A young Amazon
Indian slave bares horrific scars of the Rubber Boom
Download hi-res image Credit: © R Casement |
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